Autumn 2006

 

Dearly Beloved of Our Lord:

 

    We are very thankful to our Lord for the privilege of meeting so many people on the streets of downtown Portland.  We meet them in “Portland’s Living Room” which is Pioneer Courthouse Square (the Square) and we meet them at Portland State University.  We want to use this letter to share the stories of a few of them.

 

<<  Here is Arthur sitting with Karen on 9-11-06 as people are remembering the 9-11-01 attack on our nation.  The large flag is hanging from the ladder of a large fire truck as firefighters, police, and politicians remember their experiences in New York City.  Arthur is almost eighty and used to live in downtown Portland just up the street from the Square.  During that time he began to serve meals on Mondays and Thursdays at the Baptist church.  And he continues to do so to this day.  He stopped to chat with us as he was on his way up the street to the church to help serve meals.

 

     There are many needy people who walk by this corner of the Square.  Some are mentally ill and hang out here during the day because it is fairly safe.  There is a middle-aged African American man who spends the day trying to communicate as he walks around and around the Square.  He will stop by and ask one of us the date and then say nothing more.  And there is a woman who has befriended us over the years.  She has a faith in Jesus and is on strong mental health medications (meds).  Karen has responded to her friendship by taking her out to lunch and by helping her purchase some cleaning supplies for her small apartment that the government supplies.

 

 

 

     Karen prays often with Marie (left & below) who has a huge tumor on her back, which is the result of an operation gone very wrong.  Marie has a lot of pain as the tumor is now growing larger and larger and trying to invade her intestinal area.  Karen prays for her healing but Marie has a hard time receiving it and needs encouragement.  She has also been a victim of several apartment robberies that her manager did little to stop.  Now she has moved to a safer place but is still quite lonely and needs to trust Jesus to be her savior and healer.
   

 

    We were at the Square on opening day of classes at Portland State University and kept getting this impression to go to the campus.  So we hoped on the MAX, transferred to the streetcar, got off at the PSU stop, and walked up the Park blocks to the free speech area outside of Smith Student Center.  The weather was great, it was quiet, and a large number of students were there.  We had the opportunity to share the simple Gospel message (1 Corinthians 15:1-8) with a few hundred students, including several from Saudi Arabia.  A leader of a campus group tells us that there are now about two hundred Saudi Muslims on campus with instructions to learn all they can about the USA, Judaism, and Christianity.  We have heard, “Go into all the world…and across the street.”  We needed only to go across the street!

 

    After about twenty minutes a young man came up and interrupted our preaching.  This has happened often in the past with hecklers representing various sinful activities such as homosexuality, drug use, lesbianism, abortion, anti-war protest, etc.  But this was different.  Thomas had come to stop me from preaching a false gospel claiming that his group had the only corner on the truth.  He went on to say that all the campus Christian groups (such as Campus Crusade, Intervarsity, Chi Alpha, etc.) were false and his was the only true way.  It seemed that this was some kind of sign to us that the significant concerns on campus were going to be centering on various forms of religion and/or beliefs in god.  Please pray for us.

 

     We get to talk with a great variety of people every week.  On any given day we might be talking with a homeless person on heavy mental illness drugs (meds) and then with a lawyer or a stockbroker, some of whom have some level of faith in Jesus Christ.  But rarely do we get to dialogue with a Muslim.  Karen has had opportunity to pray with Muslim women but most Muslim men shout something at us and walk on by.  Ali was different.  He is a Canadian Arab working as a U.S. Marshall and says he has studied all the major religions.  He was going to walk on by but decided to stop and test us out.  We learned a lot from this encounter because it was more of a rational discussion with little emotion.  His U.S. Marshall’s training made him a good listener as we shared about the eyewitness accounts of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.  The Koran has no eyewitness accounts of these events but the New Testament does.  Our times with Muslim students at PSU followed by our time with Ali had us in the Holy Ghost Training School so that we can preach the simple gospel of the kingdom and the cross. 

 

    Please pray for us and all the other brethren ministering in downtown Portland.  We meet so many needy people, some of whom we mention in our newsletters.  Not all are strong and not all are young.  Dee and Arthur are two seniors who are examples to us as they continue to reach out sharing their lives and feeding the poor and hungry.  One man stops by about three times a week on his way to dialysis at the Veterans Hospital.  He shares his faith along the way even though he has some difficult days.  Richard comes in from Canby to preach on the Square during the evening rush hour and then rides the bus home so he can talk with people.  Kim comes in the morning and early afternoon and hands out tracts and prays with people.  He has been doing this for ten years and has people asking after him when he is on mission trips to Switzerland.  Some women come down to hand out sandwiches and cookies.  James comes by about every day.  He bought us several $5 burger coupon books to hand out to those who ask for food.

 

    It is such a great joy and privilege to carry His fragrance in downtown Portland at the Square or at PSU.  Thank you for your love, your financial support, and your friendship.  And especially we thank you for your prayers for us.  May you richly know His grace, peace, and mercylove.

 

~ Ron & Karen

E-mail: awakening1s@comcast.net   

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Ron & Karen Rohman

PO Box 14292

PORTLAND  OR  97293